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The article presents criticisms of works of the U.S. sociologist Talcott Parsons. The article argues that the conventional criticisms of Parsons are misplaced and that Parsons and his critics share basic assumptions. It concentrate upon two areas where criticism has been most frequently focused, firstly, the relationship between Parsons's early formulation of the action frame of reference and a functionalist methodology and secondly, the concept of the normative and its place in Parsons's theory. The criticisms of Parsons discussed in this article lead to a sociological impasse. It is important to recognise, however, that the form taken by this impasse serves to make the conventional criticisms of Parsons appear plausible, that is, the breakdown of Parsons's theoretical system does take the form of unintegrated theoretical principles, in this sense, then, there are 'two sociologies', but they are not distinct approaches. The attempt to represent them as separate paradigms is an abstraction or reification. The deficiencies of Parsons's theoretical scheme are the characteristic deficiencies of the action frame of reference in sociology.

The article focuses on the book "Societies: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives," by Talcott Parsons. Readers who may hope that this will provide them with a simplified approach to the work of Parsons will be disappointed; his style is as turgid as ever, making this a doubtful member of a series of books for beginners. Nevertheless it is a shorter route to Parsonian ideas than most, and is much more rooted in empirical data than his other books. The societies under examination do not include those of modern Europe, which will be dealt with in a later volume.

The writings of Talcott Parsons have excited great admiration among many of his fellow academics, and aroused the intense hostility of many others; but even his adversaries admit his remarkable pre-eminence in contemporary sociological theory. On the other hand, his admirers do not deny that his thought is extremely complex and its expression often highly obscure. Parsons, then, has produced a body of work which is important, difficult, and controversial; a body of work which therefore calls for sustained and rigorous analysis. The present essay is an attempt to come to grips with the crucial theoretical problems of the Parsonian system. It focuses on one of the key elements of Parsons' conceptual scheme, the four so-called system-problems, or functional prerequisites of social systems, and the four functional sub-systems associated with these prerequisites.

This article presents views of various social scientists on sociologist Max Weber's theories. The general verdict on Weber has, indeed, been unfavourable. In the opinion of sociologist Talcott Parsons, for instance, Weber failed to complete the process (of the analysis of social action), and the nature of the half way point at which he stopped helps to account for many of the difficulties of his position, in particular, the illogicality of his argument made it impossible for his theories to be assimilated to the pattern of science. But is this all that is to be said? It is possible to agree with another researcher when he concludes that Weber knew what he wanted, but somehow could not break through to it. He saw the promised land, but was not permitted to enter it, he saw not only all the defects of German idealism, but also many of the shortcomings of positivism the turn of the century, and inhibited the development of new lines of argument. He asked the right questions, and his discussion of them was relevant and highly penetrating.